


Hand-holding, as an Artform

by badboy_fangirl



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-07
Updated: 2012-05-07
Packaged: 2017-11-05 00:13:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/399775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badboy_fangirl/pseuds/badboy_fangirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Damon and Elena, dysfunctionally functional?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hand-holding, as an Artform

**Author's Note:**

> Everything through 3x20 "Do Not Go Gentle," with speculation for the final two episodes ~~but mostly blind hope~~.

When her hand accidentally brushes his, she feels a current go through her body. Then his fingers edge over, and his thumb moves across her skin, and she wonders, _how is that possible?_

So much feeling, so much sensation, just there.

She presses her thighs together, doesn't let her fingers spread to interlace with his. It's not rejection, just denial. Just the impetus she needs to run from the room.

Later, she tells herself she didn't kiss him—didn't maul him, practically—just because he tried to hold her hand and it made her ache. Later, she tells him she doesn't know how she feels.

(So, basically, she lies, to both of them.)

* * *

She sits on the window seat, legs drawn up to her chest, staring out into the sun, wondering how her life will end, because it can't keep going on like this. Everyone dying except her? It started with her parents, but it has to end. If she's dead, then everyone around her can't die anymore, right?

A knock on the doorjamb makes her head jerk around, and Damon's standing in the open doorway. He walks in even though she doesn't invite him; he sits next to her like he knows she wants him to, and he takes one of her hands without even hesitating.

He just holds it, his fingers folded around hers in a tight, reassuring way that reminds her of what he's become in her life these last six months. Unflinching, unwavering, totally what she needs. (Wants? Needs. Both. Neither.)

(He's who Ric called for backup, before Ric was the reason they needed backup.)

"We're gonna have to work with Klaus," he says, and it's not surprising, but it still manages to make her gasp out loud. "Until we know the line we came from—"

"I know, Damon," she says, and she lets her fingers respond. She grips him in return, squeezes her palm against his. Nods, when his eyes come up to hers.

She doesn't tell him her plan, doesn't say anything when he just keeps holding on. She even lets him slide his fingers between hers, the way she didn't before, the way he never will again. For one moment, she lets it be.

(She cries the whole way to the school, the warmth of his hand in hers chosen for her last memory.)

* * *

She survives, again, _some more_ , because it only makes sense that the most vulnerable would somehow never be killed.

He finds her in the ruins of the high school, some of the bodies of their cohorts, lifeless, surrounding them. He holds his hand out towards her and she takes it, lets him pull her to her feet. He doesn't say, _it will be okay_ or _you're safe now_ , but strangely, that's how she feels.

He only lets go of her hand once she's sitting in his car.

* * *

She can't sleep, so she goes to his room. When he gestures to the wide open space beside him, she lies down.

(It's not lost on her. Different bed, in Mystic Falls, his invitation this time, not hers. Same thing, anyway.)

She finds his fingers already open beneath hers. They lay that way for a long time, until he says, a touch of wonder in his voice, "I don't think I ever knew how sexy hand-holding could be."

Elena snorts. "I know, right?"

"We're weird," he pronounces.

"Way weird," she agrees. 

(She's relieved it affects him the same way, even if it's only her uneven breaths that tell the tale.)

"Elena," he murmurs, the word so soft and light, there's almost no beginning syllable.

"I want you," she states. "That's what I know right now." (That's what she will _say_ right now.)

He gives her arm a hard and fast tug, and suddenly she's on top of him, looking down into his blue, blue eyes. "Jeremy's not here to break this up, not this time."

"Thank God," she says, resisting the urge to smack a hand over her mouth. She breaks into laughter at the astonishment on Damon's face, almost feels guilty. 

Decides, if she's going to die, she better live some first.

* * *

He pushes inside her only after their hands are laced on either side of her head. Elena arches beneath him, whispers his name like a prayer. He shudders, gasping, and then...silence. 

They sleep heavily, fingers joined.


End file.
